LETTERS
Damascus: Will the Walls Fall?
FEEDBACK Readers
responded to our story
on black holes.
I found a sad irony in your issue featuring the dystopian
situation in Syria and the cosmic scale of black holes. Syria’s
plight reflects the cruel reality at the heart of civilization. The
toxic combination of religious and ethnic hatred, the inability
to attain a civil society, and the failure to accept the primacy
of science will lead to the creeping destruction of a culture
that stretches to antiquity. On the other hand we are drawn
to a dark specter of unimaginable power and distance
until we fall into the final singularity. It makes our human
condition, no matter how grand or pathetic, seem trivial.
MICHAEL MAFFETT
Lake Burton, Georgia
Author Anne Barnard asserts of
Syrian Jews that “most left after
the founding of Israel, when the
government began viewing them
with suspicion.” For centuries
Jews and other non-Muslims
in Syria were restricted in their
movement and employment
and were subjected to a special
tax called the jizya. In the 1940s
mobs rampaged through the
Jewish quarters. Jews who could
flee to Israel after 1948 did.
DORON LUBINSKY
Atlanta, Georgia
Star-Eater
The article on black holes
reinvigorated my interest in the
cosmos—fully blowing my mind
with the multiverse theory. The
idea that our universe sprang
from a singularity and contin-
ues to give birth to others in a
similar manner is enchanting
and mesmerizing. Thank you for
making me feel 13 years old—
when I read Arthur C. Clarke for
the first time—all over again.
ZACHARIAH L. SEVILLE
Ottawa, Ontario
Michael Finkel’s article was
thought provoking. However,
as a Christian, I felt that some
of his ideas left me hanging. In
the section about black holes
being “basically time machines,”
he writes “it’s possible that
to give birth to a new universe
you first need to take a bunch
of matter from an existing
universe, crunch it down, and
seal it off.” For a mere “you”
to do this of course would be
impossible, but if the name of
God, our Divine Creator, were
entered into the article at this
point, science makes sense!
The Bible does not contradict
science but clarifies it.
DOTTIE GRANGER
Camano Island, Washington
Corrections/Clarifications
MARCH 2014, WHERE GREENSTONE GROWS
Page 59: A new elevation of Aoraki/Mount
Cook was announced after we went to
press. The new figure is 12,218 feet
(3,724 meters).
QUICKSILVER Pages 69 and 82: Photo cap-
tions incorrectly say tuna were caught
in the Mediterranean. They were caught in
the Atlantic. Page 72: Iron Age fishermen
would have been Anatolian, not Turkish.
PEOPLE OF THE HORSE Page 113: Relay riders
must transfer horses two, not three, times.
March 2014
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WRITE National Geographic
Magazine, PO Box 98199,
Washington, DC 20090-8199. Letters
may be edited for clarity and length.
ART: LAWSON PARKER, NGM STAFF
6 national geographic • July 2014